Vayana · Android reader
Privacy Policy
What Vayana stores, what it sends, and what it never touches — written to match exactly what the app does, not a generic template.
In short
- There is no Vayana account and no server of ours — your library is never sent to us.
- Your books, highlights, notes, saved words and reading statistics stay on your device by default.
- Sync and automatic backup are off by default. Sync goes only to a private GitHub repository you own, and book files and covers are encrypted before they leave your device.
- Goodreads lookups happen only when you ask for one. Read aloud uses the text‑to‑speech engine you pick, which is a separate app with its own policy.
- No ads, no analytics or tracking SDKs, no in‑app purchases, and we never sell or share your data.
- Export or delete your data from inside the app, any time.
01 Information stored on your device
Everything below lives in Vayana's local database and app‑private storage. None of it is transmitted anywhere unless you explicitly turn on sync (section 3), ask for a Goodreads lookup (section 4), use read aloud (section 5), or export or share something yourself (section 6).
| Data | Details |
|---|---|
| Books & documents | The EPUB and PDF files you import or open, their covers, and your reading position in each. Paper books you track keep the same record — progress, dates and notes — without a file. |
| Highlights, notes & bookmarks | Highlighted and underlined passages, bookmarks, and notes with the hashtag tags you give them — including anything you import from a Kindle My Clippings.txt. |
| Saved words & review decks | Words you save from the bundled dictionary and where each one sits on its spaced‑review schedule. The dictionary ships inside the app and works offline; looking a word up records nothing unless you save it. |
| Library organisation | Shelves, series folders, the Read Next queue and your Currently Reading card. |
| Reading statistics | Reading time and sessions, streaks, daily and yearly goals, books finished, and each book's started and finished dates. All computed on your device. |
| Book metadata you applied | Covers, series, genres, descriptions and popular quotes you chose to apply from a Goodreads lookup, stored alongside the book and kept apart from your own highlights. |
| App & reader settings | Theme and reader theme, warm‑light and brightness, any fonts you add, size, line height, margins, alignment, hyphenation, tap zones, the display profile (Standard or E‑Ink) and any per‑book overrides. |
| Recently deleted | Books you delete wait here before they go, so you can undo. |
Uninstalling the app, or using the in‑app delete and clear‑data options, removes this data from your device — subject to the Recently deleted window the app itself gives you.
02 Permissions the app requests
| Permission | Why Vayana asks |
|---|---|
| Storage / file access | To import books, scan a folder you point it at, add fonts of your own, and write backups to the folder you choose. Always through Android's own file picker or a folder you grant. |
| Internet / network state | Only for things you opt into: sync to your own repository, a Goodreads lookup you ask for, or opening an external link such as the release page. With sync off and no lookup requested, Vayana makes essentially no network requests. |
| Keep the screen awake | Optional — so the screen doesn't dim while you're deep in a chapter. |
| Foreground service & media controls | While read aloud is playing, so playback keeps running and you can control it from the lock screen. |
Vayana never requests location, contacts, SMS, call‑log, camera or microphone permissions.
03 Optional sync & backup
Off by default
Vayana can keep your reading in step across your own devices, and can put backups where you choose:
- Sync to GitHub — a private repository you own and authorize yourself. Reading position, books, notes, shelves and saved words travel between your devices; book files and covers are encrypted with AES‑GCM before upload, using a passphrase only your devices hold.
- Backups — a portable ZIP you export and keep, plus optional automatic backups to a folder you pick, daily, weekly or every 30 days.
What this means in practice
The repository you choose, the access token you authorize and your encryption passphrase stay in Vayana's local, app‑private storage. We never receive or see them. Your data travels directly from your device to the destination you configured — never through, or stored on, a server we operate. Once it reaches GitHub, it is governed by GitHub's own policy. You can disconnect sync at any time; whatever is already in your repository, or in your backup folder, stays there until you delete it yourself.
04 Goodreads lookups
Vayana can fetch covers, series, genres, descriptions and popular quotes for a book — but only for the book you ask about, at the moment you ask. The lookup sends only what it needs to match the book, and shows you a preview before anything is applied. Nothing is looked up in the background.
Your highlights, notes, saved words and reading activity are never part of a lookup. Popular quotes that come back are kept visually distinct from your own highlights, so the two never blur together. The lookup is answered by a third party under its own privacy policy; if you would rather not use it, simply don't ask for one.
05 Read aloud & text‑to‑speech
Read aloud hands the sentences being read to the text‑to‑speech engine you select — a separate app on your device, usually the one your phone shipped with. Vayana does not synthesise speech itself and never records audio.
Most engines run entirely on the device. Some can be set to use their vendor's servers for higher‑quality voices, and in that case the text being read is handled by that engine under its own privacy policy, not ours. You choose which engine and voice to use in Vayana's settings, so you decide where that text goes.
07 No ads, analytics, tracking, or data sale
Vayana contains no advertising SDKs, no analytics or usage‑tracking SDKs, and no third‑party crash‑reporting services. We don't sell, rent, or share your personal data with advertisers or data brokers, and there are no in‑app purchases. A "Support Vayana" button opens an external payment page in your browser — we receive no data from that unless you choose to pay there, which that payment provider handles under its own policy.
08 Children's privacy
Vayana is a general‑purpose reading app, not directed at children, requires no account creation, and does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or the relevant minimum age in your jurisdiction).
09 Security
- Sync encrypts book files and covers with AES‑GCM before upload, using a passphrase only your devices hold — we never have it, and neither does GitHub.
- Every release is a signed APK published with a SHA‑256 checksum, so you can verify what you install.
- Your library, notes and statistics live in app‑private storage that other apps cannot read.
- No system is perfectly secure, but by default your data is designed never to leave your device.
10 Your choices
- Export a full ZIP backup of your library any time, and keep it wherever you like.
- Delete individual books, highlights, notes or saved words — or clear all app data — from within the app.
- Leave sync off, or disconnect it. Skip Goodreads lookups entirely. Choose a text‑to‑speech engine that runs on the device.
- Uninstall to remove all locally stored data from your device. A repository or backup folder you set up keeps its contents until you delete them there yourself.
11 Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as Vayana's features change. Material changes are reflected by updating the "Last updated" date above and, for significant changes, noted in the app's release notes.
12 Contact
Questions about this policy or your data:
App source & release notes: github.com/rjwarrier/Vayana